By Staff
One of the best kept secrets in Dowagiac is the depth and breadth of career exploration programs in the seventh and eighth grades at Dowagiac Middle School.
Career exploration is not a process which begins the last two years of high school.
Although no one really expects seventh and eighth graders to make life-long career choices in middle school, it is the time to begin cataloging interests, abilities and exposing students to what is available in the world for jobs and work.
Four programs are available for career exploration at DMS.
The first exposure is the Career Cruising program in seventh grade.
This is the first year of this program, which was administered to all seventh graders in the media center computer lab for one hour.
By answering two sets of 30 to 50 questions, student interests are aligned to the careers that satisfy those interests and lead them towards careers that they would like.
Several teachers and I took to the Career Cruising inventory and were amazed on how accurately it predicted our current and former jobs.
The Career Cruising Web site is also accessible from home at www.careercrusing.com.
In the eighth grade, students have three career exploration activities.
In December, students take the 90-minute EXPLORE tests, which include segments on reading, science, math, English and an interest inventory.
The EXPLORE test compares each student's career interests to the academic skills needed to perform that job.
EXPLORE also predicts if students are below, at or above expected levels of performance to be successful at the college level.
Later in the year, eighth graders take a Values Inventory which is applied to the Michigan Career Pathways and tells each student where their interests lie in one of six career pathways.
The pathways are: Health Sciences, Human Services, Natural Resources and Agriscience, Arts and Communication, Business Management, Marketing and Technology and Engineering/Manufacturing and Industrial Technology.
The information that is gathered in the seventh and eighth grade culminates in the development of an Educational Development Plan, or "EDP."
The EDP is mandated by the state of Michigan for every student.
In the spring, students begin the process of declaring a career pathway and planning a course of study. Also, each eighth grader is assigned to visit community speakers during the DMS Spring Career Day which reflect the student's top two Career Pathways.
The success of these innovative new career programs is mostly due to the efforts of DMS counselor Barb Strlekar.
Along with her regular scheduling and counseling duties, she orchestrates and administers these programs with the help of core class teachers.
Each of these activities provide students with unique personalized information, and the value of the programs can be easily assessed by the large numbers of students who excitedly share their profiles, inventories and career information with staff, friends and parents.
As with any classroom activity, projects that hold students' attention and provide meaningful information are remembered and make a long-term impact on them.